


We can't turn away from this

by AtariOrgeen



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Gavin Reed Needs a Hug, M/M, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Needs a Hug, emotionally constipated idiots, mentioned animal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtariOrgeen/pseuds/AtariOrgeen
Summary: While returning from a crime scene, Gavin and Nines find a severely damaged cat android. Repairing a cat together leads to some unexpected reveals and forces two emotionally constipated detectives to realise that it might be impossible to run away from their feelings for each other for much longer.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	We can't turn away from this

Gavin swore when he checked the time on his phone. It was well past two in the morning and he had an early shift in just five hours. But apparently, crime never fucking sleeps and he was called to a crime scene two hours ago before he got a chance to get at least a short nap. He shouldn't have answered the phone. Just like everyone else. But no, he had to be his usual ambitious self and come on command, like a fucking dog. To make things worse, his partner slash friend slash fuck-buddy, looked as perfect as always, with no signs of being tired or even just inconvenienced by having to work after their shift has long ended. Perks of being an android. Horribly unfair. At least they were finally finished. The victim's body was being taken to be examined by the pathologist, all the evidence they could find had been recorded. The suspect, the victim's boyfriend, was already detained by the officers, sent after him when the neighbour who called the cops after hearing loud noises confirmed that he'd seen someone of similar body build escaping from the building. It was a nice case, really. There was a dead body, sure, but after ten years in homicide, it was usual. There was no gore, evidence was quite clear, people were willing to talk. Textbook voluntary manslaughter. Poor girl. At least her killer will spend the next fifteen years, if not more, in prison. And now Gavin could finally go home and get some sleep.

He murmured his goodbyes and exited the flat without waiting for anyone. There only was a warm bed on his mind.

"Detective Reed?"

And of course, someone had to bother him when he was so close to his car. He could've ignored the person, would've actually if it was anyone else. But he had a soft spot for Nines. Or he just didn't want to piss off the hottest guy he has ever seen. And who was actually interested in him.

"Hmm?"

"May I ride with you? I came by an automated taxi and your flat is on the way to mine-"

"Nines, you don't need to explain," he couldn't not smile hearing nervousness in Nines's voice. He was always so confident in work and in bed but social situations were so difficult for him. "We're partners and it's not like you've never been in my car."

Nines smiled gratefully and went to sit on the passenger seat. The car ride was spent in comfortable silence. It wasn't very long either. Gavin's flat was only fifteen minutes ride from the crime scene and he made it in less than ten, he didn't feel like obeying the laws when roads were almost empty at this time of night. Nines also apparently wasn't feeling like berating him for that.

"I can drive you to your place," offered Gavin, when they arrived in front of his building. "Or you can crash at mine if you want. Our shift starts in… four hours. Fucking hell…"

Gavin knew his proposition is kind of violating fuck-buddies laws but it was quite reasonable. Nines must have thought the same because he smiled lightly and nodded. Gavin parked on the street, garage doors were loud as hell and he had enough human decency not to open them when his neighbours were asleep. They would report him if he did. It wouldn't be the first time.

They got out of the car and made their way towards the building's entrance. The night was really pleasant, quiet, and warm. In moments like that, it was always hard to think that barely a moment ago he had to deal with violence, death, and all the opposites of peacefulness. And maybe that's why he almost jumped when he heard a loud voice coming from a dark alleyway between two apartment buildings. He met Nines's eyes and they both took out their guns. Pointed at the ground, but you could never be too careful. It could be a clumsy rat, a drunk, or a criminal.

None of his guesses were true. As soon as they got close to the trash containers, they heard another loud noise and then much quieter, pathetic meowing. Gavin immediately holstered the gun and carefully crouched down, signalling Nines to do the same. In between the containers, there were a lot of crushed glass bottles. They must have been the source of the noise. Behind them, hidden under the container, was the saddest creature Gavin has ever seen. It was too dark to really see the cat, but his heart still immediately swelled with sympathy. The poor animal wasn't even trying to run away when he held out his hand for it to smell. It must have been desperate to be noticed. And probably injured, he realised suddenly.

Gavin grabbed the cat gently and pulled it from its hiding place. He expected to grab it somewhere behind its front legs and realised with terror that he couldn't feel them.

"Nines' give me some light."

He felt Nines pulling Gavin's phone from his trousers. The android turned on the torch function, careful not to direct the light at the cat's face. Gavin shuddered when he saw the damage done to the cat. Fuck, it was sick.

"It's an android," said Nines. "It has stimulated breathing, I can interface with it to identify the owner, but… Well, there are no laws against abuse of android animals." Distaste was clear in his voice. "It will be best to take it to your flat and check all the damages to its biocomponents."

"Yeah…" he breathed out. 'Fuck, what a poor baby." The cat pressed its head to Gavin's chest and meowed pathetically and he felt a sudden urge to murder the fucking monster who did it. "It's okay, little one, you're safe, everything's gonna be alright," he was mumbling when they were waiting for the elevator to arrive at the eighth floor where his flat was.

Seeing injures done to the cat android in the light of his living room was much worse. Its front legs were ripped out, its right ear was damaged as if someone tried to cut it off but couldn't manage. One of its eyes was gouged out leaving damaged wires. Its artificial skin wasn't covering the whole white chassis, leaving white spots that clearly looked like someone tried to burn or melt them.

His own, organic cat, abandoned his usual resting place to sit next to the abused android and started to lick its head.

"I will try to interface with it to check for possible damages to internal biocomponents."

Nines revealed the white chassis of his right hand and gently cupped the cat's paw. The interface ended quickly.

"She is registered as a property of Mike Trevor. He hadn't reported her to be missing. There are no internal damages but she has lost plenty of thirium and requires immediate repairs. I have thirium in my flat I can go get it-"

"I have some thirium in my fridge," informed Gavin. "I also have a repair kit in my bedroom. I will get it, please, stay with her.

Nines send him a questioning look but only nodded and took the cat from Gavin's arms.

"I will put her on the table."

Gavin hummed in agreement and rushed to the bedroom to grab the kit. It was big but he knew he hadn't everything to fix the cat. At least he will be able to replace damaged wires and repair the burned plates.

When he got back to the living room, the scene before him stopped him in mid-step. Nines was softly petting the soft belly of the android cat and whispering quiet reassurances to her. His heart started beating harder and- fuck. It was so cute and domestic and he lo- Fuck. No. Fuck. Not this shit.

"Move tin can, I have a cat to repair. And grab some thirium from the fridge."

Nines raised his perfect eyebrows but went to the kitchen. Gavin's eyes involuntary followed after him but another meow turned his attention towards the injured cat.

"Okay, baby, I will take care of your legs now, ok?"

He had no way of checking if the cat understood him but he had no trouble with accessing its – her – legs. He hasn't done anything like that in a while but he hadn't forgotten how to do this. And he was familiar with cat android's blueprints. It wasn't hard, really, it was intuitive by now.

He couldn't really do much about the legs but he replaced the torn wires with new ones, even though they weren't really connected to anything. The same thing had to be done with the wires of the missing optical unit. He had to remove the right facial plate to access wires and it was still a really small space because of the processor unit, but he managed. He didn't even notice when Nines returned with two bottles of thirium. He grabbed one of them and disconnected one of the damaged plates on the cat android's back. There was a thirium reserve on its spine and while ingesting thirium worked well enough for androids, it would be quicker to just replenish completely used reserves. He poured half of the battle into the container and waited few minutes. It was quickly directed to the right biocomponents and soon emptied. Gavin poured the rest of the liquid into the thirium reserve and closed it. He hadn't reconnected the damaged plate yet. This one wasn't severely damaged and he had enough polymer to print two that needed replacing. His 3D printer was capable of such simple designs as chassis plates.

"Since when can you repair androids?" Nines's voice was calm but his LED was blinking between yellow and red.

Gavin stilled and sighed. He really should have thought earlier that Nines will have questions. He was the most advanced android CyberLife has ever created. Even if he lies, Nines will know. And will get offended and Gavin didn't want to fight. Not anymore. Not with Nines. He could tell him. It wasn't some awful secret. Just one that he wasn't comfortable with everyone knowing. Nines wasn't everyone though. Nines was, was…

"I was there when you were created. I mean androids. Not you you. I'm… Elijah is my older brother."

Red, red, red, yellow, red, yellow, yellow.

Before Nines could say anything, Gavin continued, unwilling to hear what Nines was thinking.

"I'm not really into engineering, I'm more of a computer nerd, ya' know, coding and shit like that. It's fun, I was totally fixated since I'd watched Mr. Robot. But I get the simple mechanics, I'd seen it enough in the past. And I was really into creating cat androids, I mean, cats are best so why not create cat androids-" He was rambling and he couldn't make himself stop. But, fuck, he really liked Nines and they had their arrangement and it was good for both of them. And maybe he didn't own him his personal info but people were irrational and-

"Gavin, calm down." He felt a cool hand on his warm one. "I shouldn't have been so surprised, you share many features with Kamski. I'm actually quite disappointed in myself, with my superior analysing software-"

"It's good, you know? It's not like we want people to know. There are already too many criminals hating me and I'd prefer to not give them a solid reason in form of a rich brother, to actually act on their hatred."

The rescued cat meowed quietly and raised her little head to look at them both. Gavin cooed and gently petted her head, careful not to touch her torn ear. Now, that she wasn't in danger of losing too much thirium, Gavin could finally take a good look at her. She was a beautiful, fluffy Selkirk Rex with light brown hair with lighter and darker accents, her remaining eye was dark gold and she was so adorable, that Gavin was instantly in love.

"She had a name registered?," he asked Nines.

"Bella"

"Seriously? That's so generic. Hey, Bella," he tried.

The cat android hissed and ostentatiously turned her head away with an annoyed huff.

"It seems she doesn't like it," said Nines with amusement clear in his voice. "And you called your cat Scratch, that's quite generic too."

"It's not generic!" protested Gavin. "It's actually after a programming language. I started learning coding from it. Thought it'd be funny to name a cat like that. I guess I will have to think about a name for this pretty lady."

"Her owner might want her back," said Nines with a frown.

"That fucker can try. He's not looking for her and I'm not gonna tell him I have her.

"I can always remove information about her owner if he starts looking for her."

"Aww, Nines, I didn't know you care!"

Android sent him a cool glare.

"Yes, Gavin, I do care. I thought you would have noticed by now."

"Sorry… That was a stupid thing to say…," he lowered his gaze.

Suddenly, he felt strong hands grabbing his arms and he was pressed to the firm, cool chest of his partner. He hummed with content. All the tension and adrenaline left his body leaving crushing exhaustion. He felt safe and good and needed it so much it was almost painful.

"It's late," said Nines quietly. "You can still get two hours of sleep. She is safe now."

Gavin looked at the cat resting on the table. Scratch was lying next to her and purring softly. They were good. Gavin also was good here, with his cats safe and with Nines's arms around him.

"Nines?" Gavin lifted himself a little to look android in the eyes.

"Hmm?"

"Can I… Can I kiss you?"

They've kissed many times already but never like that. It was always full of passion and lust, an interlude to all things soon to come. There was no true intimacy or vulnerability in them. Not like now. Their kiss was a soft, gentle press of lips There was no burning passion, no promise of sexual completion. Only the truest form of intimacy, almost hesitant, shy. They've never done anything like this but it was still intoxicating and addicting. It was breaking their agreement completely. I t was everything they wanted to avoid. And it was wonderful.

Somehow they ended together in his bed, fully clothed under the covers. Still in each other's arms, quiet and relaxed. Gavin knew they will need to talk. It will be a difficult conversation and he couldn't predict how it will end but for now, he could enjoy this peace and warmth. At this moment, he felt good and safe. It will end in little more than an hour but for now, he could enjoy it with his whole heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first work published on this site. It's some light fic that I wanted to write for this pair. I wasn't expecting to fall in love with them but it quickly became one of my favourite ships.  
> I'm not a native speaker and I could only check my work with Grammarly but I hope it's not too bad language-wise.  
> I hope you enjoyed, I would be grateful for some feedback!


End file.
